WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A chicken bone found in Chile provides solid evidence to settle a debate over whether Polynesians traveling on rafts visited South America thousands of years ago -- or vice versa, researchers said on Monday.

The DNA in the bone carries a rare mutation that links it to chickens in Tonga and Samoa, and radiocarbon dating shows it is around 600 years old -- meaning it predates the arrival of Spanish conquerors in South America.

"These chickens are related to hens from Polynesia," said Alice Storey, a doctoral student at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, who worked on the study.

Her team's finding, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that best-selling author and adventurer Thor Heyerdahl was only partly right when he sailed on the raft Kon-Tiki from South America to Polynesia to prove prehistoric contact across the Pacific.

"He had it backwards," Storey said in a telephone interview.

"Heyerdahl had proposed that people were coming out of South America and into Polynesia," she added. "We know the Polynesians were actually going to South America and probably trading chickens for (sweet potatoes) and bottle gourds."

Chickens originally come from southeast Asia, and many researchers had assumed that Spanish conquistadors carried them there in the 16th century.

Other experts were not sure, and when a team stumbled on some old chicken bones at an archeological site in Chile, they decided to carbon date them and look at the DNA.

Luckily for the researchers, the chicken DNA carries a rare mutation.

It is identical to bones from two prehistoric archeological sites in the Pacific: Mele Havea in Tonga, dating to 2,000 years ago, and one from American Samoa, about the same age as the Chilean site.

"Argument about the origins and date of introduction of the domestic fowl or chicken (Gallus gallus) to the Americas has raged for over 30 years," Storey's team wrote.

"Here, we provide the first unequivocal evidence for a pre-European introduction of chickens to South America and indicate, through ancient DNA evidence, that the likely source of that introduction was Polynesia," they added.
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User 1 makes several posts a day and User 2 a few a week. User 1 replies to nearly everything User 2 says, usually in a rude manner. User 2 puts User 1 on ignore. Which one is the stalker? (Hint: go with the smaller number.)

I'll make this quick because this is all off-topic. David Ganong, the president and CEO of this oldest chocolate factory in North America, is a member of my Club. He's a really, truly, good person: he's involved himself in countless charitable and community activities and initiatives. I wish there were lots more CEOs like him.

So, how about that Thor Heyerdahl guy?
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User 1 makes several posts a day and User 2 a few a week. User 1 replies to nearly everything User 2 says, usually in a rude manner. User 2 puts User 1 on ignore. Which one is the stalker? (Hint: go with the smaller number.)

BTW...Did anybody see the movie "Fitzcaraldo" or a documentary of the making of it? They got a team of Amazon natives to drag a whole big steamboat up a mountain and down the other side, to get from one river to the next. That's IRL, no special effects.

The aborigines also did what?
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User 1 makes several posts a day and User 2 a few a week. User 1 replies to nearly everything User 2 says, usually in a rude manner. User 2 puts User 1 on ignore. Which one is the stalker? (Hint: go with the smaller number.)

I read them all while studying my heritage. Love the way they navigated by the stars long before anyone else on the planet would leave the edge of land masses. (Tho there have been some reports of another ancient civ that did it. Can't remember name. Something like red sand people or something. Googling...

Yes, the Red Sea People. Not the Red Sea as a place, but the Red Sea Civilization. Remains of pottery, burial practices found from France, north to Ireland, and as far as Maine, USA, and all in between. Only one book and one movie covering discovery, but that's just what I've found so far.

Being half Samoan I'd like to thank Sarge for the data. I've always wondered why they'd stop at Easter Island when South America was only another (+/-)2000 miles.

:)

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"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss

I read them all while studying my heritage. Love the way they navigated by the stars long before anyone else on the planet would leave the edge of land masses. (Tho there have been some reports of another ancient civ that did it. Can't remember name. Something like red sand people or something. Googling...

Yes, the Red Sea People. Not the Red Sea as a place, but the Red Sea Civilization. Remains of pottery, burial practices found from France, north to Ireland, and as far as Maine, USA, and all in between. Only one book and one movie covering discovery, but that's just what I've found so far.

Being half Samoan I'd like to thank Sarge for the data. I've always wondered why they'd stop at Easter Island when South America was only another (+/-)2000 miles.

That would be rather odd of them, to stop at Easter Island, wouldn't it?
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User 1 makes several posts a day and User 2 a few a week. User 1 replies to nearly everything User 2 says, usually in a rude manner. User 2 puts User 1 on ignore. Which one is the stalker? (Hint: go with the smaller number.)